


So I keep losing weight, just trying to be perfect, waiting for somebody to tell me that i'm worth it.

by upsettyspaghetty456



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Angst, Annes a traumatised babey, Bulimia, Cathy is a good friend, Eating Disorders, Highschool AU, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jane is Annes foster carer, Panic Attacks, i'm sorry Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, this is basically me projecting onto characters, this is my third work on here and i still can't tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28047750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upsettyspaghetty456/pseuds/upsettyspaghetty456
Summary: TW: Bulimia, descriptions of vomitingRandom Oneshot, highschool AU, Catalina would be the most amazing guidance/English teacher ever."Janes bacon and egg rolls don’t taste as good the second time around. They never do."Anne is slipping again, she's in foster care, her parents don't want her, and on top of all that the numb feeling is starting to swarm in and drown her from the inside out.Cathy notices something is wrong with her friend and when she discovers what Annie is doing to take control back over her life, Cathy isn't surprised, so she goes to the one person that's always helped Anne before, their guidance teacher, Catalina.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	So I keep losing weight, just trying to be perfect, waiting for somebody to tell me that i'm worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> hello lovely people!
> 
> I feel so bad for projecting onto poor Annie, but I suppose it gives Katherine a break.  
> I was considering writing this about Joan, don't ask me why, but I concluded that Anne would be a better fit, especially with all the hate that Courtney Bowman was subjected to at the start of her run.

“Do you feel that pain is the worst feeling, Anne?” 

“I used to.” 

“But you don’t anymore?” 

“No, once you’ve felt nothing, pain is a godsend” 

I used to eat when I was hungry but then I started to feel numb, emotionally of course, and nothing would make it go away the numb feeling. I found out that it’s very very hard to concentrate on anything apart from the nothingness and I guess that’s where I fucked up. I was sitting on my bed one night, I’d forgotten to eat all day (I genuinely forgot) and suddenly the numb was replaced by another kind of empty, hunger. 

It’s also very very hard to focus on anything aside from being hungry when you’re hungry, and it was a blessed distraction. Granted, it was hard to stay hungry, my brain would take over “eat something, eat something NOW” it would scream at me and I would blindly obey it. 

I’d starve during the day then binge at night and I saw nothing wrong with that, I was still eating, right? 

That’s how my brain justified this weird habit that I’d developed. 

One day, I was at school and I felt the numbness surround me, it does that sometimes, it appears out of nowhere, keeps me on my toes. Anyway, I was at school and this feeling creeps in, I had eaten that morning already, so hunger wasn’t a distraction at the time, the pain wouldn’t help, not with this feeling. 

I was stuck, I had no clue how to deal with this, no distractions so I did what any sane person would do, I raised my hand, asked to go to the toilet, using the excuse of my period and I threw up in the bathroom. 

In the movies, they make it seem so easy, stick your fingers down your throat, trigger your gag reflex and then that’s that. It’s so much harder. 

I think that your brain knows what you’re trying to do and although it generated the idea, it doesn’t necessarily want to carry it out. 

It took me a good minute to get my fingers in the right place, then when I felt myself gag, I automatically pulled my hand away (how rude of my brain, I know) but alas, I wouldn’t be defeated so easily. I kept on trying and eventually it worked, I was sick. 

Janes bacon and egg rolls don’t taste as good the second time around. They never do. 

After I was sure that nothing else was in my stomach, I simply popped a mint into my mouth, washed my hands and went back to English, no one knew what I’d just done, and I hoped that’d be how it stayed. It did for a while, I’d sneak off a lunch, break, classes, anytime that I knew teachers wouldn’t be walking about, it was my little secret. 

Jane wasn’t worried when I magically started eating again, in fact, she was overjoyed that I was eating normally again! She had her little girl back! 

I didn’t have the heart to tell her of my new routine at school, she seemed so much happier now, and to be honest, I was much happier now too. 

Catalinas Office, 12/09/2020 

I was called down from Drama, well, technically I was called up from drama but that doesn’t matter now. 

Catalina is, no, was my guidance teacher, she was amazing, an older lady (near retirement, I’m sure) who always wore a tartan shirt and a smile. She always had a bowl of nut, gluten and dairy-free sweets sitting on her desk with a little post-it note saying ‘take one, or, if you want too, you can take two, but make sure you have someone to give it to :)’ (I’d never noticed the note until that day) you couldn’t leave her office without her insisting you took a sweet. 

She had all these inspirational quotes stuck to her walls, they were everywhere, and going in all directions, there was one (it’s an upside-down one) that always made me smile. 

“Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell”- Carrie Fisher 

I don’t know why it made me smile, but it did. 

There was another one that made me cringe “if you frown in Scotland, you smile in Australia” 

“Those ones are for the first years” she’d always say with a smile, but I knew that secretly, it was for us, the older kids. 

Sorry. I got sidetracked. 

I got called up from Drama to Catalinas Office, I thought it was about my, erm, other issues, so for the whole two minutes that it took me to walk from A to D (literally, our school has ‘blocks’ it’s so weird) I had this whole explanation about how I was cooking and I accidentally sliced my wrist and THEN my cat coincidently scratched the same arm and THEN I fell and scratched my neck, (it was a very elaborate explanation, but I’m a very clumsy person, so it was semi-believable). 

I arrive at Catalinas Office and there she is, but she’s not smiling and she’s holding my file AND my friend, Cathy is sitting beside her, looking very guilty. 

Shit. 

“take a seat, Anne” Catalina said whilst gesturing to an empty chair next to Cathy, who doesn’t look at me. 

“can I ask what this is about, Catalina?” I make my voice go quite high, Catalina was an English teacher, she’d like the intonation in my voice. I glanced at Cathy, begging her to tell me what was going on, she just looked down at her feet again. I started to make my way to the seat that Catalina had gestured too earlier. I stopped beside it, deciding whether I should make a run for it. 

“I think it’d be best if you took a seat first” 

Well, shit, that’s my plan foiled then. I thought to myself as I pulled out the chair. 

Catalina glanced down at my file, then looked up at me, then looked over at Cathy and back to me. I can’t really remember what was said in detail, there was some small talk (“how have you been today, Anne?” “would you like another glass of water, Cathy?” and so on) as Catalina assessed my mood. I zoned out of the conversation; it wasn’t important at the time, to be honest, nothing was important at the time, except for the time. You see, Catalina had taken me out of Drama with ten minutes left until the end of the period, the bell had just rung, and I now had English. 

Now, if you’re wondering why that was important, you’re like me and you don’t listen very well because I said earlier, that I made myself sick every English period, I had English now. 

I'm still not sure if it was fear that I was feeling or if it was adrenalin, I just know that I could feel the panic rising, my heart sped up, my hands started to sweat (gross, I know) and I felt sick (oh the irony). My friend Cathy kept on giving me these pathetic looks and I'd glare back at her, I hated her at the time, I'm not sure if I still do, to be honest. 

Catalina looked up at me again, she smiled a small, concerned smile and started to speak. 

“Anne, your friend Cathy has some concerns about your eating habits, do you know what these concerns could be?” 

“I'm afraid that I do not, Catalina, I wasn’t aware that my eating habits were to be dictated by someone else” 

“I see... Cathy has come to me with the worry that you’re making yourself sick after you eat, is this true?” 

“I’m afraid that I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about Catalina, I did have some issues with eating in second year, but that was restrictive eating AND it’s already on file, correct?” 

One thing that I've gotten good at over the years is talking bullshit. Normally if you try and look sincere enough, teachers let you off easy, in certain situations, crying works as well. 

“that is correct, Anne, however, I need you to understand that whether you deny purging”- I winced at the word ‘purging’ I knew what that was, sick people did that, I wasn’t sick. - “or if you confirm it, I must get in touch with Jane anyway, so it would be easier for you to tell me the truth now” 

“you can’t tell Jane, there's nothing to tell, I'm fine, I eat like a normal person now, I Uhm, I promise!” 

That feeling from earlier, that weird feeling, yeah, that was fear. I don’t remember what I said, but I know that at some point, I started to shout. I knew that she couldn’t phone Jane, Jane would take me to the doctors again and I'd get sent to the hospital and, and I'd get locked up! You see, I was Definity panicking at this point, I could feel my breathing start to pick up, Catalina was standing up now, so was I, she was telling me to calm down, telling me to breathe but I couldn’t. My lungs wouldn’t take in the air that they so desperately needed, and they burned. 

Everything burned. 

I looked over at Cathy. She had her hands over her ears. I felt a burning sensation at the back of my throat now as well, I wasn’t going to be sick, believe me, I knew I wasn’t going to be sick. 

I knew this feeling, I knew this feeling well, it was guilt. I felt guilty for scaring Cathy, but at the same time, it felt... good? I liked the power I guess; I liked the feeling of being bigger than someone. So yes, I felt guilty, but not guilty enough to stop. 

I felt guilty nearly every night, you know, I think people forget that I didn’t want to be like this. I felt guilty for eating all this food, knowing it wasn’t staying down for longer than an hour but if it did stay down, I'd feel guilty and fat. I couldn’t win. 

It’s hard to beak an addiction that you don’t know you have. 

Cathy didn't like noise, she never has... One time, we were in Primary seven and one boy started shouting at us, Cathy started to cry and cover her ears, I marched up and smacked the boy right on the mouth. He didn’t shout at us again annnnnnd I got suspended for two days, but it was worth it. 

Cathy is, no, was worth it. 

I was on the floor, curled up in a ball. Catalina was talking to me, telling me to breathe, count to ten and back but I couldn’t, it still burned 

A few minutes passed, I could hear the clock ticking and I was trying to count and then a phone is being pressed to my ear. 

“Annie, love, what’s wrong?” 

I looked up and pressed the end call button. 

Too much was wrong.


End file.
